Justified and Ancient
by Michael Arianna
Summary: Post-Ep for "Lies My Parents Told Me" Spike and Giles talk it out...


Justified and Ancient or, Glowy Sticks  
Post Ep: Lies My Parents Told Me  
Rating: PG-13 for language  
Disclaimer: Show's over and I've got no residuals. Guess that means they aren't mine. Bummer.

Spike opened his eyes slowly. He shifted on the cot and clanked. So, he was chained again. Figured. He should have known not to come back. He shrugged and winced. Pain blossomed out of his chest up his neck and over his ears, but it felt good. Nice. Righteous like fuck all. 

"So, I see you've made it back."

Spike lifted his head at the voice, and strained towards the stairwell to get a look at the ex-watcher, ex-father figure, ex-ex smoker calmly puffing away three steps from the door. 

"I assume I have you to thank for this, eh, Rupert?" he asked, tugging at his manacled wrists. 

"You're welcome," Giles said dryly. He tapped ash onto the stair and smothered it with his boot. He was silent then, simply sat and smoked. Spike let his head fall back onto the pillow. 

"You know I'm not going to trust you after this," he said, shifting to eyeball the human.

"If you had an ounce of sense in you, Spike, you never would have in the first place," Giles replied. "God knows I never trusted you."

At this Spike sat up. He pushed himself against the wall and dangled his legs off the cot. "Hello, vampire. You'd be stupid to trust me. Anyway, if I had any sense, I'd probably be dead by now," he said proudly.

Giles raised an eyebrow. "Yes, yes, I quite agree." 

Spike turned his head. The smoke was getting to him. He wanted it in his lungs. He needed something to distract him from the penetrating gaze of the Watcher. Giles came off the stairs slowly, for once acting like the middle aged man he pretended he wasn't. Still, he moved faster than Spike would have liked. 

"You think I could have one of those?" Spike asked, looking up at the man now hovering over him.

Giles pretended to think it over. "Why? Do you want to be my friend now?" "I care fuck all for you, and you know it. I just want a smoke. No need to get your knickers in a bunch."

Giles sniffed. "Hardly."

"So? You going to give us one or not?" Spike stuck his hand out expectantly, fingers arched to receive.

"No, I am not," Giles said. He shoved his pack firmly into his pocket. "But, but you tried to kill me! You *owe* me!" Spike spat at him. His mouth was parched, but he managed to get the man's face wet. Giles raised his hand, never taking his gaze from the vampire, and wiped himself dry. 

"The only thing I owe you, Spike, is death." His voice was eerily unrattled. Spike shivered. He was reminded for only a fraction of a second of Angelus, of torture, and of Rupert's resilience during that time when he had first sided with the Slayer. 

"No, you owe me something else," Spike said calmly, looking up and catching Rupert's narrowed eyelids, he knew the man could see the confident sparkle in his dead blue eyes. "I saved your life once. A few times, as I recall. Figure I ought to get something for that."

He didn't even see the fist coming, and he blamed Wood for that. Fucker must have done something to his peripheral. He got his hands up, chained as they were, in time to block the second blow. 

"Something like that, perhaps?" Giles asked. He caressed his right hand in his other palm. 

Spike sneered, curling his lip upwards. "Got a bit of a metal jaw, have I?" "If you had, then I would find a way to rust it shut," Giles told him. He pushed himself onto the metal table and suddenly seemed very old. Perhaps he realized it as well, because his anger appeared to double. Spike gave the room a quick glance to check that no weapons were laying around. He allowed himself to relax against the wall when he saw none. 

"You like hearing me talk, Rupes. Reminds you of home, I should reckon." Immediately, Spike's head was shoved against the wall, his Adam's apple strangling against Giles's inhumanly large hand.

"Don't you ever speak to me of home, Spike. You remind me of nothing." "I reckon I remind you that you're a failure. I bet you look at me all the time and think, 'where the hell did I go wrong?' I bet when you found out I was shagging the Slayer you felt well put down," Spike snapped. He rubbed his neck when the hand fell, more for show than any real need. He had felt warm there for a few seconds, but the feeling was gone the moment his dead hand touched the spot.

"Actually, I laughed," Giles said flatly. "I thought it was the funniest thing I'd heard in years. Between that and Anya's becoming a demon again--what else would I want to come back to?" He leaned forward and grabbed Spike's hair, forcing his head back to bare his neck. "I find you terribly amusing, Spike. Always have."

Spike struggled. "Let go of me, Rupert. I'll tell you right now that if I turn, I will bite." 

Rupert stopped beating Spike's head on the wall, but kept his hand in the vampire's hair, petting him in a studied absence. "Don't be silly, Spike. You know you'd be killed instantly if you did."

"Chip's out, Watcher. Or have you forgotten?"

This got another raised eyebrow out of the man, a smirk of repugnance. "I wasn't referring to the chip, Spike."

Spike raised his eyes to the ceiling, focusing on the spot in the wall where he figured Buffy slept two floors above. "Maybe so," he said, "but I *know* that whatever she does to me will be a thousand times better compared to what she did to you."

Giles's cheek twitched, just barely, but Spike caught it. "Tossed you out, didn't she?" He snorted. "Figures. A man does his job and leave it to the woman to misunderstand."

"Children have different ways of looking at things," Giles replied. 

"She's not a child. None of them are," Spike said quietly. "Not anymore. Sooner you get a clue about that, Rupes, sooner you'll..."

"Accept that I am useless," Giles said. He stretched his arms over his head. "I am not quite ready for that yet, Spike. I have other things to amuse me at the moment, though some I had not planned on."

"Such as?" Spike asked. He tilted his head and regarded the man with his best 'give me a smoke' leer. 

"Such as you." Giles pulled a cigarette out, lit it, and sat back on the table. Spike tried to keep his tongue from hanging out as he watched him enjoying it. 

"You don't even sodding smoke," Spike said.

"Are you reminding me or telling me?" Giles asked. 

"What bloody difference does it make?" Spike asked, biting back spittle. He lunged, mindless of the chains, but just needing to move, to bite, to aggress. He reached the end of the line, his energy spent in tugging and clanking it. Giles smiled around his cigarette. 

"Why don't you just stake me if you won't give me a damn smoke?" Spike was whining, keening to get at the glowy stick that tasted so nice. Giles exhaled at him--like secondhand smoke did him any favors. Spike gulped at the air, but it was the taste he wanted, the tar, the paper so nicely rolled and snug between his lips. 

"Perhaps when this is over, I shall," Giles said as offhandedly as making a promise to write to a long lost friend. 

Spike shrugged and leaned back. He gazed at Giles with deliberate nonchalance. "Maybe when this is over I'll let you."

"Well. I was already looking forward to that day, but now...I may just have to declare it a bank holiday."

"Now that we've got that settled...could I *please* have a cigarette?" 

"Since you asked nicely," Giles replied, his eyes catching a spark of malice. He flicked his lit cigarette towards the vampire. Spike grabbed it before it burnt a hole into his mottled skin. He sucked at it, making his cheeks pull deep into his jaw. 

"Suppose you'll want a thanks?" he sneered. 

Giles stood. "When I want something from you, Spike, I'll tell you. Rest assured of that." He turned and headed towards the stairs.

"Oh, I will," Spike said. He inhaled and did not sound as confident as he wished. "Hey, you want to undo me before you go?" He rattled the chains impatiently. 

Giles stopped at the door, his hand upon it. "I would love to *undo* you, Spike, but this is not the night for it." Then he opened the door, closed it, and left Spike alone in the darkness with the dying embers of his glowing paper stick. Spike crushed it out against the metal frame of the cot. He lay on his back, arms beneath his head, and waited for that night to come. 


End file.
